BioShock™ Remastered

Bioshock itself is fantastic. The remaster contains a well-known problem in which it crashes routinely when saving (manual or automatic). This makes the entire game absolutely unplayable unless you like doing every single section several times in the hopes that it might not erase your progress and quit to desktop. It is shocking that anything could make it to release in this condition.

Unlike the syncophantic fanboy alleluias found most everywhere, my impressions upon returning to play through this game 10 years later tells me something entirely different. I've played a lot more games, old and new, since I first played this in 2007, and Bioshock simply doesn't hold up to the standards of both its past *and* its future. The controls and mechanics still feel overly floaty and slightly disconnected from my input, which does little to engage me in the action. The AI does what it's been scripted to do: act loud and dumb to make it ridiculously easy for the player, even on Hard with Vita-chambers disabled. The story is stereotypical to a fault-- underwater Randian dystopia for teens--and the voice acting hams up what would have been otherwise half-decent dialogue. (Fontaine's voice acting is particularly egregious.) Now, I didn't think it was all bad--the Steinman's Office level is still as unforgettable a slice of grisly horror as the day I played it, Andrew Ryan's character has this intriguing bittersweet tragedy about it a-la Charles Foster Kane, the fights against the big daddies still excite, and there's this undeniable mood about Rapture that invites revisits. But on the whole, it all feels so juvenile to me now, especially in the light of having played more mature shooters like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and the original System Shock. It's not easy to admit, but some nostalgia really *is* rose-tinted!

Remastered version of the game is bugged AF. Had a hard time figuring out how to fix the sound, only thing that worked for me was to disable all sound output but my earphones. Half an hour later it stopped reading input from my gamepad... I had to reboot the system to fix this! and guess what, no sound again and this time my old trick does not work.

decent remaster. looks graphically like bioshock 2. new game plus is a nice addition and the concept art museum was cool. The map menu is buggy and broken. the game freezes when you use the map menu and the game is prone to crashes usally having to do with the map menu or sometimes level transtion. This still hasn't been fixed and 2ks patch on steam adds new drm thankfully gog doesn't have that garbage. you do get the orginal too when you buy the remaster.

Bioshock has all the great story-telling and immersion of Half-LIfe, combined with the brilliant RPG/FPS elements of System Shock 2. The voice-acting is what really makes this game work; it makes Rapture seem so alive thanks to the constant chatter of its characters. There are tons of things to explore that are not required, and the system of collectibles is fairly complex. There's EVE, ADAM, scrap, weapons, weapon upgrades, plasmids, tonics, different kinds of ammunition, and more. The world of Rapture is just so lovingly rendered too. I got my game from GOG. I just played the original Bioshock, didn't touch the remaster after everyone said it was full of game-breaking bugs. So far, my experience of the classic game has been amazing. My only suggestion is to make the controls .ini file read-only, so that if you do have a crash it doesn't reset your settings. A must play for any fan of the interactive arts!